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= Slavery_in_Britain =
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Introduction
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Slavery in Britain existed before the Roman occupation, which occurred
from approximately AD 43 to AD 410, and the practice endured in
various forms until the 11th century, during which the Norman conquest
of England resulted in the gradual merger of the pre-conquest
institution of slavery into serfdom in the midst of other economic
upheavals. Given the widespread socio-political changes afterwards,
slaves were no longer treated differently from other individuals in
either English law or formal custom. By the middle of the 12th
century, the institution of slavery as it had existed prior to the
Norman conquest had fully disappeared, but other forms of unfree
servitude continued for some centuries.
British merchants were a significant force behind the Atlantic slave
trade (also known as the "transatlantic" slave trade) between the
seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, but no legislation was ever
passed in England that legalised slavery. In the case 'Somerset v
Stewart' (1772) 98 ER 499, Lord Mansfield ruled that, as slavery was
not recognised by English law, James Somerset, a slave who had been
brought to England and then escaped, could not be forcibly sent to
Jamaica for sale, and was set free. In Scotland, colliery (coal mine)
slaves were still in use until 1799, when an act was passed which
established their freedom, and made slavery and bondage illegal.
An abolitionist movement grew in Britain during the 18th and 19th
centuries, until the Slave Trade Act 1807 prohibited the slave trade
in the British Empire. However it was not until 1937 that the trade of
slaves was made illegal throughout the British Empire, with Nigeria
and Bahrain being the last British territories to abolish slavery.
Despite being contrary to the laws of the UK, practices described as
"modern slavery" still exist in Britain and have often involved the
effects created by human traffickers attacking those from poorer
countries, such as those undertaking various crimes victimising
Vietnamese nationals. At the same time, multiple groups within the
organised crime networks in the UK have frequently targeted British
nationals. The country's government has, in a public statement, noted
how "gangs exploit vulnerable individuals to transport [illegal]
substances", and "who is recognised as a victim of modern slavery"
includes both men and women as well as adults and children.
Specifically, in 2022, a full "12,727 potential victims of modern
slavery were referred to the Home Office in 2021, representing a 20%
increase compared to the preceding year".
Overview
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Historically, Britons were enslaved in large numbers, typically by
rich merchants and warlords who exported indigenous slaves from
pre-Roman times, and by foreign invaders from the Roman Empire during
the Roman Conquest of Britain.
A thousand years later, British merchants became major participants in
the Atlantic slave trade in the early modern period. As part of the
triangular trade-system, ship-owners transported enslaved West
Africans to European possessions in the New World (especially to
British colonies in the West Indies) to be sold there. The ships
brought commodities back to Britain then exported goods to Africa.
Some plantation owners brought slaves to Britain, where many of them
ran away from their masters. After a long campaign for abolition led
by Thomas Clarkson and (in the House of Commons) by William
Wilberforce, Parliament prohibited dealing in slaves by passing the
Slave Trade Act 1807, which the Royal Navy's West Africa Squadron
enforced. Britain used its influence to persuade other countries
around the world to abolish the slave trade and to sign treaties to
allow the Royal Navy to interdict slaving ships.
In 1772, 'Somerset v Stewart' held that slavery had no basis in
English law and was thus a violation of 'habeas corpus'. This built on
the earlier Cartwright case from the reign of Elizabeth I, which had
similarly held the concept of slavery was not recognised in English
law. This case was generally taken at the time to have decided that
the condition of slavery did not exist under English law. Legally ("de
jure") slave owners could not win in court, and abolitionists provided
legal help for enslaved black people. However actual ("de facto")
slavery continued in Britain with ten to fourteen thousand slaves in
England and Wales, who were mostly domestic servants. When slaves were
brought in from the colonies they had to sign waivers that made them
indentured servants while in Britain. Most modern historians generally
agree that slavery continued in Britain into the late 18th century,
finally disappearing around 1800.
Slavery elsewhere in the British Empire was not affected -- indeed it
grew rapidly especially in the Caribbean colonies. Slavery was
abolished in the directly governed colonies, like Canada or Mauritius,
through buying out the owners from 1834, under the terms of the
Slavery Abolition Act 1833. Most slaves were freed, with exceptions
and delays provided for territories administered by East India
Company, in India, Ceylon, and Saint Helena. These East India Company
exceptions were eliminated in 1843, though slave holdings, within the
indirectly ruled Indian Princely states, were still being captured by
the 1891 Census of India. While in indirectly ruled British
Protectorates, incorporated after this date, like the Colony and
Protectorate of Nigeria (1914-1954), Sudan (1899-1956), Maldives,
Trucial States (UAE), Qatar, Bahrain and Kuwait, slavery remained
legally permissible, under local Sharia legal codes, for the majority
of the twentieth century.
The prohibition on slavery and servitude is now codified under Article
4 of the European Convention on Human Rights, in force since 1953 and
incorporated directly into United Kingdom law by the Human Rights Act
1998. Article 4 of the Convention also bans forced or compulsory
labour, with some exceptions such as a criminal penalty or military
service.
Before 1066
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From before Roman times, slavery was prevalent in Britain, with
indigenous Britons being routinely exported. Following the Roman
conquest of Britain, slavery was expanded and industrialised.
After the fall of Roman Britain, both the Angles and Saxons propagated
the slave system. One of the earliest accounts of slaves from early
medieval Britain come from the description of fair-haired boys from
York seen in Rome by Pope Gregory the Great, in a biography written by
an anonymous monk.
Vikings traded with Gaelic, Pict, Brythonic and Saxon kingdoms in
between raiding them for slaves. Saxon slave traders sometimes worked
in league with Norse traders, often selling Britons to the Irish. In
870, Vikings besieged and captured the stronghold of Alt Clut (the
capital of the Kingdom of Strathclyde) and in 871 most of the site's
inhabitants were taken, most probably by Olaf the White and Ivar the
Boneless, to the Dublin slave markets. Maredudd ab Owain (d. 999) is
said to have paid a large ransom for the return of 2,000 Welsh slaves.
Anglo-Saxon opinion eventually turned against the sale of slaves
abroad: a law of Ine of Wessex stated that anyone selling his own
countryman, whether bond or free, across the sea, was to pay his own
weregild in penalty, even when the man sold was guilty of a crime.
Nevertheless, legal penalties and economic pressures that led to
default in payments maintained the supply of slaves, and in the 11th
century there was still a slave trade operating out of Bristol, as a
passage in the 'Vita Wulfstani' makes clear.
The 'Bodmin manumissions' preserves the names and details of slaves
freed in Bodmin (then the principal town of Cornwall) during the 9th
and 10th centuries, indicating both that slavery existed in Cornwall
at that time and that numerous Cornish slave-owners eventually set
their slaves free.
Norman and medieval England
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According to the Domesday Book census, over 10% of England's
population in 1086 were slaves.
While there was no legislation against slavery, William the Conqueror
introduced a law preventing the sale of slaves overseas.
In 1102, the church Council of London convened by Anselm issued a
decree: "Let no one dare hereafter to engage in the infamous business,
prevalent in England, of selling men like animals." However, the
Council had no legislative powers, and no act of law was valid unless
signed by the monarch.
Contemporary writers noted that the Scottish and Welsh took captives
as slaves during raids, a practice which was no longer common in
England by the 12th century. Some historians, like John Gillingham,
have asserted that by about 1200, the institution of slavery was
largely non-existent in the British Isles.
Other academics such as Judith Spicksley, have argued that forms of
slavery did in fact continue in England between the 12th and 17th
centuries, but under other terms such as "serfs", "villein" and
"bondsmen", however the serf or villein differed from the slave in
that they could not be purchased as a moveable object who could be
removed from his land; meaning that instead serfdom was closer to the
purchasing of rental titles today than to true slavery. De facto
slavery in the form of forced labour did still occur though, as in the
carrying away of over a thousand children from Wales to be "servants",
which is recorded as taking place in 1401.
Transportation
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Transportation to the colonies as a criminal or an indentured servant
served as punishment for both great and petty crimes in England from
the 17th century until well into the 19th century. A sentence could be
for life or for a specific period. The penal system required convicts
to work on government projects such as road construction, building
works and mining, or assigned them to free individuals as unpaid
labour. Women were expected to work as domestic servants and farm
labourers. Like slaves, indentured servants could be bought and sold,
could not marry without the permission of their owner, were subject to
physical punishment, and saw their obligation to labour enforced by
the courts. However, they did retain certain heavily restricted
rights; this contrasts with slaves who had none.
A convict who had served part of his time might apply for a "ticket of
leave", granting them some prescribed freedoms. This enabled some
convicts to resume a more normal life, to marry and raise a family,
and enabled a few to develop the colonies while removing them from the
society. Exile was an essential component, and was thought to be a
major deterrent to crime. Transportation was also seen as a humane and
productive alternative to execution, which would most likely have been
the sentence for many if transportation had not been introduced.
The transportation of English subjects overseas can be traced back to
the English Vagabonds Act 1597. During the reign of Henry VIII, an
estimated 72,000 people were put to death for a variety of crimes. An
alternative practice, borrowed from the Spanish, was to commute the
death sentence and allow the use of convicts as a labour force for the
colonies. One of the first references to a person being transported
comes in 1607 when "an apprentice dyer was sent to Virginia from
Bridewell for running away with his master's goods." The Act was put
to little use despite attempts by James I who, with limited success,
tried to encourage its adoption by passing a series of Privy Council
Orders in 1615, 1619 and 1620.
Transportation was seldom used as a criminal sentence until the Piracy
Act 1717, "An Act for the further preventing Robbery, Burglary, and
other Felonies, and for the more effectual Transportation of Felons,
and unlawful Exporters of Wool; and for declaring the Law upon some
Points relating to Pirates", established a seven-year penal
transportation as a possible punishment for those convicted of lesser
felonies, or as a possible sentence to which capital punishment might
be commuted by royal pardon. Criminals were transported to North
America from 1718 to 1776. When the American revolution made
transportation to the Thirteen Colonies unfeasible, those sentenced to
it were typically punished with imprisonment or hard labour instead.
From 1787 to 1868, criminals convicted and sentenced under the Act
were transported to the colonies in Australia.
After the Irish Rebellion of 1641 and subsequent Cromwellian invasion,
the English Parliament passed the Act for the Settlement of Ireland
1652 which classified the Irish population into several categories
according to their degree of involvement in the uprising and the
subsequent war. Those who had participated in the uprising or assisted
the rebels in any way were sentenced to be hanged and to have their
property confiscated. Other categories were sentenced to banishment
with whole or partial confiscation of their estates. While the
majority of the resettlement took place within Ireland to the province
of Connaught, perhaps as many as 50,000 were transported to the
colonies in the West Indies and in North America. Irish, Welsh and
Scottish people were sent to work on sugar plantations in Barbados
during the time of Cromwell.
During the early colonial period, the Scots and the English, along
with other western European nations, dealt with their "Gypsy problem"
by transporting them as slaves in large numbers to North America and
the Caribbean. Cromwell shipped Romanichal Gypsies as slaves to the
southern plantations, and there is documentation of Gypsies being
owned by former black slaves in Jamaica.
Long before the Highland Clearances, some chiefs, such as Ewen Cameron
of Lochiel, sold some of their clans into indenture in North America.
Their goal was to alleviate over-population and lack of food resources
in the glens.
Numerous Highland Jacobite supporters, captured in the aftermath of
the Battle of Culloden and rigorous Government sweeps of the
Highlands, were imprisoned on ships on the River Thames. Some were
sentenced to transportation to the Carolinas as indentured servants.
Slavery and bondage in Scottish collieries
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For nearly two hundred years in the history of coal mining in
Scotland, miners were bonded to their "maisters" by a 1606 Act "Anent
Coalyers and Salters". The Colliers and Salters (Scotland) Act 1775
stated that "many colliers and salters are in a state of slavery and
bondage" and announced emancipation; those starting work after 1 July
1775 would not become slaves, while those already in a state of
slavery could, after 7 or 10 years depending on their age, apply for a
decree of the Sheriff Court granting their freedom. Few could afford
this, until a further law in 1799 established their freedom and made
this slavery and bondage illegal.
Barbary pirates
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From the 16th to the 19th centuries it is estimated that between 1
million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured and sold as slaves by
Barbary pirates and Barbary slave traders from Tunis, Algiers and
Tripoli (in addition to an unknown number captured by the Turkish and
Moroccan pirates and slave traders). The slavers got their name from
the Barbary Coast, that is, the Mediterranean shores of North Africa
-- what is now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. There are reports
of Barbary slave raids across Western Europe, including France,
Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, England and as far north as Iceland.
Villagers along the south coast of England petitioned the king to
protect them from abduction by Barbary pirates. Item 20 of The Grand
Remonstrance, a list of grievances against Charles I presented to him
in 1641, contains the following complaint about Barbary pirates of the
Ottoman Empire abducting English people into slavery:
Enslaved Africans
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The privateer Sir John Hawkins of Plymouth, a notable Elizabethan
seafarer, is widely acknowledged to be "the Pioneer of the English
Slave Trade". In 1554, Hawkins formed a slave-trading syndicate, a
group of merchants. He sailed with three ships for the Caribbean via
Sierra Leone, hijacked a Portuguese slave ship and sold the 300 slaves
from it in Santo Domingo. During a second voyage in 1564, his crew
captured 400 Africans and sold them at Rio de la Hacha in present-day
Colombia, making a 60% profit for his financiers. A third voyage
involved both buying slaves directly in Africa and capturing another
Portuguese slave ship with its cargo; upon reaching the Caribbean,
Hawkins sold all his slaves. On his return, he published a book
entitled 'An Alliance to Raid for Slaves'. It is estimated that
Hawkins transported 1,500 enslaved Africans across the Atlantic during
his four voyages of the 1560s, before stopping in 1568 after a battle
with the Spanish in which he lost five of his seven ships. English
involvement in the Atlantic slave trade only resumed in the 1640s
after the country acquired an American colony (Virginia).
By the mid-18th century, London had the largest African population in
Britain. The number of black people living in Britain by that point
has been estimated by historians to be roughly 10,000, though
contemporary reports put that number as high as 20,000. Some Africans
living in Britain would run away from their masters, many of whom
responded by placing advertisements in newspapers offering rewards for
the returns.
A number of former black slaves managed to achieve prominence in
18th-century British society. Ignatius Sancho (1729-1780), known as
"The Extraordinary Negro", opened his own grocer's shop in
Westminster. He was famous for his poetry and music, and his friends
included the novelist Laurence Sterne, David Garrick the actor and the
Duke and Duchess of Montague. He is best known for his letters which
were published after his death. Others, such as Olaudah Equiano and
Ottobah Cugoano were equally well known, and along with Ignatius
Sancho were active in the British abolition campaign.
Runaways
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We know of several hundred enslaved Africans that escaped captivity
while in Britain. While very little is known about most of the
escapees, some insight can be gained into the lives of some, through
17th and 18th century newspaper adverts.
* James Williams, born into slavery in North America circa 1735,
escaped twice from Captain Isaac Younghusband of the ship "Pleasant”.
After his first attempt, he spent several months as a free man in the
British Army, as a drummer in Sir Robert Riche’s Dragoons. His
enslaved status was discovered and he was discharged and returned to
Captain Younghusband. Back on board the "Pleasant", James remained
only a few days before successfully escaping again.
* A group of young men of African heritage escaped from Stanton’s
Dockyard, Deptford in 1759. Known by the pseudonyms Boatswain, Johnny
Mass, Jack Black and Harry Green, these four men ran from captivity
aboard the Hampden packet ship, while she was being repaired. The
ship’s commander, Richard Mackenzie, believed they had made their way
to Gravesend intending to board another vessel.
* John Lewis, was an enslaved African belonging to Captain James Reid,
a mariner trading with Grenada who lived in East Lane, Rotherhithe. In
April 1768, John returned to London on board the Lord Holland, East
Indiaman - a merchant ship trading with India and China, lost the
following year en-route to Madras. A few months later he absconded
from the Reid house. An able seaman and servant, fluent in both
English and French, he was highly valued. Captain Reid offered a
significant reward of 5 guineas and expenses for his recapture and
return, the equivalent of £500 today.
* Not all enslaved individuals in Britain were African. The word
'black' was used in 17th and 18th century newspaper adverts to
describe people from many different non-white cultures. In 1764, a
young girl known as Henny or Henrietta, described as an ‘East India
Black girl’ (possibly from Bengal) lived with Ebenezer Mussel and his
23 year old wife, Sarah in Aldgate House, Bethnal Green. Ebenezer was
well known as a Justice of the Peace, and was also an influential book
collector. Henny ran away from the Mussel's just moments before her
baptism at St Matthews Church, Bethnal Green.
* Christmas Bennett was a woman of colour, of an uncertain age, who
found herself contracted to work for a Mr Gifford of Brunswick Row,
Queen Square Great Ormond Street for an unknown number of years. In
February 1748, after Christmas had been missing for three days and not
returned, Mr Gifford placed an advert in the newspaper for more
information about her whereabouts, though he was already aware that
third parties could be hiding her somewhere around Whitechapel.
Brunswick Row was next to the Foundling Hospital. A brickmaker called
John Gifford is recorded in the Hospital accounts between 1739 and
1750. Gifford had expanded his business by building and renting houses
on the site, from which the Hospital received an income. It is
unclear whether Christmas was contracted to work as a household
domestic servant, or in some other role relating to Gifford's brick
and construction business. As an indentured employee she was
contractually required to fulfil the term of her employment, whatever
her legal status. In a flooded market, servants of all backgrounds
commonly broke the terms of their employment and left without notice
if a better position became available elsewhere.
* Ann Moor was an enslaved woman of colour in London, who ran away
from Lieutenant Colonel John Perry on 22 October 1720. After Ann had
been gone for over 10 days, Perry placed an advert in the newspaper
seeking information about her whereabouts. He stated that if she
returned of her own free will she would be ‘kindly received’. Perry
placed a second advert on 25 February 1721, requesting the address of
an informer in order to pay a reward and giving African House,
Leadenhall Street as his point of contact. A member of the public, who
had chosen to remain anonymous and not collected payment, had provided
information leading to Ann's capture and return but she had remained
free for a number of months. Perry joined the Royal Navy as a
teenager, becoming a lieutenant in April 1689. Scarcely a year later,
he lost his right arm after a battle with a French privateer. He was
promoted to captain and placed in charge of HMS Cygnet, a fireship
which spent a year in the West Indies. Upon returning to London, his
ship was attacked and forced to surrender. Found guilty of failing in
his duty to secure his ship, he was sentenced to 10 years’
imprisonment and given a £1000 fine. Three years later he was pardoned
and acquitted by the Lords Justices. Perry’s naval career then turned
towards hydraulic engineering. After several years abroad, he was
contracted to stop the breach in the Thames river wall at Dagenham,
which was having a severe impact on shipping and trade in and out of
London. Some 300 men built three dams which were completed in 1719. At
the same time Ann ran away, Perry was spending considerable time in
Rye, Dover and Dublin advising and designing harbour
improvements. He never married, suggesting a dependence upon
Ann, who may have been the only other member of his household. His
regular absences would therefore have provided ample opportunity to
leave and remain undetected for such a long time. As the second advert
confirms, Ann had been returned to Perry by late February 1721, but it
remains unclear whether she was still with him when he settled in
Spalding, Lincolnshire in 1729. He died three years later, aged
63. Perhaps coincidentally, a woman called Ann Moor was buried in
Spalding in 1772.
Triangular trade
==================
By the eighteenth century, the "triangular trade" became a profitable
economic activity for port cities including Bristol, Liverpool and
Glasgow. Merchant ships set out from Britain, loaded with trade goods
which were exchanged on the West African shores for slaves captured by
local rulers from deeper inland; the slaves were transported through
the infamous "Middle Passage" across the Atlantic, and were sold at
considerable profit for labour in plantations. The ships were loaded
with export crops and commodities, the products of slave labour, such
as cotton, sugar and rum, and returned to Britain to sell the items.
The Isle of Man was also involved in the transatlantic African slave
trade.
Judicial decisions
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No legislation was ever passed in England that legalised slavery,
unlike the Portuguese 'Ordenações Manuelinas' (1481-1514), the Dutch
'East India Company Ordinances' (1622), and France's 'Code Noir'
(1685), and this caused confusion when English people brought home
slaves they had legally purchased in the colonies. In 'Butts v. Penny'
(1677) 2 Lev 201, 3 Keb 785, an action was brought to recover the
value of 10 slaves who had been held by the plaintiff in India. The
court held that an action for trover would lie in English law, because
the sale of non-Christians as slaves was common in India. However, no
judgement was delivered in the case.
An English court case of 1569 involving Cartwright who had bought a
slave from Russia ruled that English law could not recognise slavery.
This ruling was overshadowed by later developments, particularly in
the Navigation Acts, but was upheld by the Lord Chief Justice in 1701
when he ruled that a slave became free as soon as he arrived in
England.
Agitation saw a series of judgements repulse the tide of slavery. In
'Smith v. Gould' (1705-07) 2 Salk 666, John Holt stated that by "the
common law no man can have a property in another". (See the "infidel
rationale".)
In 1729, the Attorney General, Philip Yorke, and Solicitor General of
England, Charles Talbot, issued the Yorke-Talbot slavery opinion,
expressing their view that the legal status of any enslaved individual
did not change once they set foot in Britain; i.e., they would not
automatically become free. This was done in response to the concerns
that Holt's decision in 'Smith v. Gould' raised. Slavery was also
accepted in Britain's many colonies.
Lord Henley LC said in 'Shanley v. Harvey' (1763) 2 Eden 126, 127 that
as "soon as a man sets foot on English ground he is free".
After 'R v. Knowles, ex parte Somersett' (1772) 20 State Tr 1 the law
remained unsettled, although the decision was a significant advance
for, at the least, preventing the forceable removal of anyone from
England, whether or not a slave, against his will. A man named James
Somersett was enslaved by a Boston customs officer. They came to
England, and Somersett escaped. Captain Knowles captured him and took
him on his boat bound for Jamaica. Three British abolitionists, saying
they were his "godparents", applied for a writ of 'habeas corpus'. One
of Somersett's lawyers, Francis Hargrave, stated "In 1569, during the
reign of Queen Elizabeth I, a lawsuit was brought against a man for
beating another man he had bought as a slave overseas. The record
states, 'That in the 11th [year] of Elizabeth [1569], one Cartwright
brought a slave from Russia and would scourge him; for which he was
questioned; and it was resolved, that England was too pure an air for
a slave to breathe in'." He argued that the court had ruled in
Cartwright's case that English common law made no provision for
slavery, and without a basis for its legality, slavery would otherwise
be unlawful as false imprisonment and/or assault. In his judgement of
22 June 1772, Lord Chief Justice William Murray, Lord Mansfield, of
the Court of King's Bench, started by talking about the capture and
forcible detention of Somersett. He finished with:
Several different reports of Mansfield's decision appeared. Most
disagree as to what was said. The decision was only given orally; no
formal written record of it was issued by the court. Abolitionists
widely circulated the view that it was declared that the condition of
slavery did not exist under English law, although Mansfield later said
that all that he decided was that a slave could not be forcibly
removed from England against his will.
In Scotland, the Court of Session had ruled in the "Tumbling Lassie"
case of 1687 that slavery did not exist in Scots law, but the case was
not well-known and appeared to have been forgotten in later years.
Cases were brought to the court in 1752 and 1769 by escaped slaves,
but both ended before a ruling due to the death of one of the parties.
After reading about Somersett's Case, Joseph Knight, an enslaved
African who had been purchased by his master John Wedderburn in
Jamaica and brought to Scotland, left him. Married and with a child,
he filed a freedom suit, on the grounds that he could not be held as a
slave in Great Britain. In the case of 'Knight v. Wedderburn' (1778),
Wedderburn said that Knight owed him "perpetual servitude". The Court
of Session ruled against him, saying that chattel slavery was not
recognised under the law of Scotland, and slaves could seek court
protection to leave a master or avoid being forcibly removed from
Scotland to be returned to slavery in the colonies.
Abolition
======================================================================
The abolitionist movement was led by Quakers and other
Non-conformists, but the Test Act prevented them from becoming Members
of Parliament.
William Wilberforce, a member of the House of Commons as an
independent, became the Parliamentary spokesman for the abolition of
the slave trade in Britain. His conversion to Evangelical Christianity
in 1784 played a key role in interesting him in this social reform.
William Wilberforce's Slave Trade Act 1807 prohibited the slave trade
in the British Empire. It was not until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833
that the institution finally was abolished, but on a gradual basis.
Since land owners in the British West Indies were losing their unpaid
labourers, they received compensation totalling £20 million. Former
slaves received no compensation.
The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron (or Preventative
Squadron) at substantial expense in 1808 after Parliament passed the
Slave Trade Act. The squadron's task was to suppress the Atlantic
slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa, preventing the
slave trade by force of arms, including the interception of slave
ships from Europe, the United States, the Barbary pirates, West Africa
and the Ottoman Empire.
The Church of England was implicated in slavery. Slaves were owned by
the Anglican Church's Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in
Foreign Parts (SPGFP), which had sugar plantations in the West Indies.
When slaves were emancipated by Act of the British Parliament in 1834,
the British government paid compensation to slave owners. The Bishop
of Exeter, Henry Phillpotts, and three business colleagues acted as
trustees for John Ward, 1st Earl of Dudley when he received
compensation for 665 slaves. The compensation of British slaveholders
was almost £17 billion in current money.
Economic impact of slavery
======================================================================
Historians and economists have debated the economic effects of slavery
for Great Britain and the North American colonies. Some analysts, such
as Eric Williams, suggest that it allowed the formation of capital
that financed the Industrial Revolution, although the evidence is
inconclusive. Slave labour was integral to early settlement of the
colonies, which needed more people for labour and other work. Also,
slave labour produced the major consumer goods that were the basis of
world trade during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries:
coffee, cotton, rum, sugar, and tobacco. Slavery was far more
important to the profitability of plantations and the economy in the
American South; and the slave trade and associated businesses were
important to both New York and New England.
Others, such as economist Thomas Sowell, have noted instead that at
the height of the Atlantic slave trade in the 18th century, profits by
British slave traders would have only amounted to 2 per cent of
British domestic investment. In 1995, a random anonymous survey of 178
members of the Economic History Association found that out of the 40
propositions about the economic history of the United States that were
surveyed, the group of propositions most disputed by economic
historians and economists were those about the postbellum economy of
the American South (along with the Great Depression). The only
exception was the proposition initially put forward by historian Gavin
Wright that the "modern period of the South's economic convergence to
the level of the North only began in earnest when the institutional
foundations of the southern regional labour market were undermined,
largely by federal farm and labour legislation dating from the 1930s."
62 per cent of economists (24 per cent with and 38 per cent without
provisos) and 73 per cent of historians (23 per cent with and 50 per
cent without provisos) agreed with this statement.
Additionally, economists Peter H. Lindert and Jeffrey G. Williamson,
in a pair of articles published in 2012 and 2013, found that, despite
the Southern United States initially having per capita income roughly
double that of the Northern United States in 1774, incomes in the
South had declined 27% by 1800 and continued to decline over the next
four decades, while the economies in New England and the Mid-Atlantic
states vastly expanded. By 1840, per capita income in the South was
well behind the Northeast and the national average (Note: this is also
true in the early 21st century). Reiterating an observation made by
Alexis de Tocqueville in 'Democracy in America', Thomas Sowell also
notes that like in Brazil, the states where slavery in the United
States was concentrated ended up poorer and less populous at the end
of the slavery than the states that had abolished slavery in the
United States.
While some historians have suggested slavery was necessary for the
Industrial Revolution (on the grounds that American slave plantations
produced most of the raw cotton for the British textiles market and
the British textiles market was the vanguard of the Industrial
Revolution), historian Eric Hilt has noted that it is not clear if
this is actually true; there is no evidence that cotton could not have
been mass-produced by yeoman farmers rather than slave plantations if
the latter had not existed (as their existence tended to force yeoman
farmers into subsistence farming) and there is some evidence that they
certainly could have. The soil and climate of the American South were
excellent for growing cotton, so it is not unreasonable to postulate
that farms without slaves could have produced substantial amounts of
cotton; even if they did not produce as much as the plantations did,
it could still have been enough to serve the demand of British
producers. Similar arguments have been made by other historians.
Additionally, Thomas Sowell has noted, citing historians Clement Eaton
and Eugene Genovese, that three-quarters of Southern white families
owned no slaves at all. Most slaveholders lived on farms rather than
plantations, and few plantations were as large as the fictional ones
depicted in 'Gone with the Wind'.
In 2006, the then British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, expressed his
deep sorrow over the slave trade, which he described as "profoundly
shameful". Some campaigners had demanded reparations from the former
slave trading nations.
In recent years, several institutions have begun to evaluate their own
links with slavery. For instance, English Heritage produced a book on
the extensive links between slavery and British country houses in
2013, Jesus College has a working group to examine the legacy of
slavery within the college, and the Church of England, the Bank of
England, Lloyd's of London and Greene King have all apologised for
their historic links to slavery.
University College London has developed a database examining the
commercial, cultural, historical, imperial, physical and political
legacies of slavery in Britain.
Involvement of the British monarchy
======================================================================
The direct roles that individual members of the country's monarchy had
in slave trading, particularly in terms of both controlling day-to-day
business operations and also amassing personal profits, has resulted
in specific criticism of the governing institution itself. The ruler
Charles II, who reigned as King of England, Scotland, and Ireland from
1660 to 1685, granted the charter of the Royal African Company (RAC)
in 1663. That "document provided a blueprint for how Britain's slave
trade was to be conducted", according to analysis from the Canadian
Broadcasting Corporation. The RAC transported nearly two hundred
thousand enslaved people over a period of multiple decades. The then
Duke of York, Charles II's brother James, received the position of
running the company in the text of the charter; James later became
King himself.
The presently ruling King Charles III publicly expressed remorse for
these actions in the context of his formal coronation in 2023. "I
cannot describe the depths of my personal sorrow at the suffering of
many, as I continue to deepen my understanding of slavery's enduring
impact," concluded an official statement from Buckingham Palace. He
additionally has given access to the Royal Collection and the Royal
Archives to assist with those conducting scholarly research into
British slavery.
A publication of the Australian Institute of International Affairs
(AIIA) on 9 November 2023, a think tank based out of that country,
analysed the King's widely reported state visit to Kenya and described
its reconciling events as seeming "effusive in" their "repentance".
The statement noted that "[c]ollecting the evidence of wrongdoings
poses a... challenge" when detailing the actions against Kenya and
other subjects of colonialism since "[m]any of those actively engaged
in the slave trade were leaders or executives in the largest companies
and institutions of the time." The fact that the "first British
company to engage in the slave trade was the Royal African Company, in
which the Royal family of the time had a financial interest", presents
particular difficulties according to the think tank.
Modern slavery
======================================================================
Much modern slavery in the UK derives from the human trafficking of
children and adults from parts of Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and
elsewhere for purposes such as sexual slavery, forced labour, and
domestic servitude. The number reported is increasing annually, with
17,004 potential victims recorded in 2023, the highest annual number
of referrals since the National Referral Mechanism began. People
living in the UK are commonly targeted. British citizens accounted for
25% (4,299) of all recorded potential victims in 2023, when they
represented the most frequently referred nationality. Forced labour
is a leading type of modern slavery in adults. County lines drug
trafficking has become a leading form of criminal child exploitation.
Males have been found to be affected more often, both among adults and
children.
As modern slavery is a hidden crime, its true prevalence is difficult
to measure. In 2021 the Global Slavery Index estimated that there were
about 122 thousand victims in the UK (a prevalence of 1.8 people per
1,000 population). Research published in 2015, following the
announcement of the government's 'Modern Slavery Strategy', estimated
the number of potential victims of modern slavery in the UK to be
around 10-13 thousand, of whom roughly 7-10 thousand were currently
unrecorded (given that 2,744 confirmed cases were known to the
National Crime Agency).
See also
======================================================================
* Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery
* History of the Royal African Company
* Human rights in the United Kingdom
* Human trafficking
* Husband selling
* Law of the United Kingdom
* Slave Trade Acts
* Slavery at common law
* Slavery in Ireland
* Somerset v Stewart
* Unfree labour
* Wife selling (English custom)
Further reading
======================================================================
* Anstey, Roger. 'The Atlantic slave trade and British abolition,
1760-1810' (1975)
*
* Devine, Tom M. 'Recovering Scotland's Slavery Past'. (Edinburgh U,
2015).
* Drescher, Seymour. 'Econocide: British slavery in the era of
abolition' (U of North Carolina Press, 2010).
* Drescher, Seymour. 'Abolition: a history of slavery and antislavery'
(Cambridge UP, 2009).
* Dumas, Paula E. 'Proslavery Britain: Fighting for slavery in an era
of abolition' (Springer, 2016).
* Eltis, David, and Stanley L. Engerman. "The importance of slavery
and the slave trade to industrializing Britain." 'Journal of Economic
History' 60.1 (2000): 123-144.
[
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/David_Eltis/publication/23565372_The_Importance_of_Slavery_and_the_Slave_Trade_to_Industrializing_Britain/links/588e2abb92851cef1362c973/The-Importance-of-Slavery-and-the-Slave-Trade-to-Industrializing-Britain.pdf
online]
*
*
* Hudson, Nicholas. " 'Britons Never Will be Slaves': National Myth,
Conservatism, and the Beginnings of British Antislavery."
'Eighteenth-Century Studies' 34.4 (2001): 559-576.
[
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30054230 online]
* Kern, Holger Lutz. "Strategies of legal change: Great Britain,
international law, and the abolition of the transatlantic slave
trade." 'Journal of the History of International Law/Revue d'histoire
du droit international' 6.2 (2004): 233-258.
[
https://web.archive.org/web/20200213225249/https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/76ae/610240ed73ee1252e721a9aa755a0e12498e.pdf
online]
* Midgley, Clare. 'Women against slavery: the British campaigns,
1780-1870' (Routledge, 2004).
* Morgan, Kenneth. 'Slavery and the British empire: from Africa to
America' (Oxford University Press, 2007).
* Olusoga, David. 'Black and British: A Forgotten History' (Macmillan,
2016);
* Page, Anthony. "Rational dissent, Enlightenment, and abolition of
the British slave trade." 'Historical Journal' 54.3 (2011): 741-772.
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0018246X11000227
*
* Scanlan, Padraic X. 'Slave empire: How slavery built modern Britain'
(Hachette UK, 2020).
* Sussman, Charlotte. 'Consuming Anxieties: Consumer Protest, Gender
& British Slavery, 1713-1833' (Stanford University Press, 2000).
* Swingen, Abigail Leslie. 'Competing Visions of Empire: Labor,
slavery, and the origins of the British Atlantic empire' (Yale
University Press, 2015).
* Taylor, Michael. "The British West India interest and its allies,
1823-1833." 'English Historical Review' 133.565 (2018): 1478-1511.
https://doi.org/10.1093/ehr/cey336
* Walvin, James, ed. 'England, Slaves and Freedom, 1776-1838'
(Springer, 1986) essays by experts;
[
https://books.google.com/books?id=9JWvCwAAQBAJ&dq=England+slaves+and+freedom,+1776%E2%80%931838&pg=PA1
online]
* Whyte, Iain. 'Scotland and the abolition of black slavery,
1756-1838' (Edinburgh University Press, 2006)
[
https://books.google.com/books?id=l9KqBgAAQBAJ&pg=PP1 online].
* Wiecekt, William M. "Somerset: Lord Mansfield and the legitimacy of
slavery in the Anglo-American world." 'Constitutional Law' (Routledge,
2018) pp. 77-138.
[
https://chicagounbound.uchicago.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?referer=
https://scholar.google.com/&httpsredir=1&article=3831&context=uclrev
online]
* Zoellner, Tom. 'Island on Fire: The Revolt That Ended Slavery in the
British Empire' (Harvard University Press, 2020).
External links
======================================================================
*
*[
https://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/help-with-your-research/research-guides/slavery-or-slave-owners/
Records on slaves and slave owners in the National Archives]
License
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL:
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Britain
